Tome of the Undergates

Five

Screaming from above, an arrow caught a tardy pirate crawling across the chain. It struck deep into his neck, forcing a blood-choked gurgle from the man as he lost his grip on the bridge of links and went tumbling headfirst into the churning waters below.

‘Eight,’ Kataria remarked, nocking another arrow.

Her bowstring sang a melancholy dirge for the next pirate struck, the shict grinning as he fell to join his companion in the liquid tomb.

‘Nine,’ she added, drawing another missile.

‘Stop it,’ Quillian growled in response, levelling her crossbow towards the deck. ‘You’re shattering my concentration. ’

‘You have to concentrate to lose?’ Kataria asked coolly as she loosed her arrow. ‘How sad. Ten.’

‘I have to concentrate to make sure I don’t kill the wrong people,’ Quillian snapped back. She squeezed the trigger on her weapon and sent a bolt flying down to meet one of the deck-bound invaders below.

‘So you kill a few of your own along with the pirates.’ Kataria laughed. ‘It’s not like anyone was expecting you to do your job flawlessly.’ She winked an emerald eye. ‘You’re only human.’ Her bow hummed and someone screamed from below. ‘Eleven.’

‘You stupid savage,’ Quillian muttered, loading her crossbow.

‘You’re just upset that you’re losing.’ She launched another arrow. ‘To look, one would think you’ve never counted Kou’ru before.’ Before the Serrant could reply, she smirked. ‘You see, Kou’ru is-’

‘What your breed calls humans, I know,’ Quillian growled. ‘I take no pride in killing my own kind, much less making games of it.’

‘Well, no wonder you’re so bad at this.’

The Serrant held her tongue, opting instead to focus her aim. It was difficult to ignore the shict; her idle babble was a paling annoyance compared to the grating accuracy of her scorekeeping. That only tightened her resolve, however. She vowed that no simple-minded savage would outshoot a trained Serrant.

‘No way in hell,’ she hissed to herself.

‘Would it help if I shot blind?’

Quillian turned, incredulous. ‘What?’

Kataria’s grin was broad as she tugged her headband down over her eyes. Her ears quivered, one rotating to the left, the other to the right, like hounds with the scent of prey.

‘I can’t be blamed for this, you know. Shicts invented archery. We’re even named after the sound of arrows hitting flesh.’ She let her missile fly and smiled. ‘Shict.’

‘Really,’ Quillian muttered, ‘and here was I thinking you were named after what comes out of my-’

‘Your envy certainly smells like that.’ Kataria lifted her headband and frowned out. ‘Twelve. . wait, no, that was just a glancing shot.’ The fall in her voice lasted only a moment before she jumped up and down, giggling madly. ‘Wait again! Someone got him in the neck with a sword! He’s dead! That counts, that counts!’

‘Will you shut up?’

‘Well, you can hardly expect me to help you when you keep shoving that foul attitude at me. Too bad; I could have improved your score to being at least halfway respectable for a human.’

‘Help?’ Quillian laughed blackly. ‘I’ve seen your kind’s “help” first-hand, savage. I know what you’ve done to my people.’

‘If we’re talking about crimes and kinds,’ Kataria replied nonchalantly, ‘we may as well discuss this strange little rabble of vermin called humanity.’ She loosed an arrow. ‘Thirteen.’ She reached for another. ‘At any rate, all the shict tribes put together only add up to a fraction of your teeming race. We’re smarter than you, quicker than you, craftier than you, and yet all you need to do to beat us out,’ she uttered the last words contemptuously, ‘is breed.’

‘And how many people, innocent people, will never get the chance because of what your kind has done? Your tribes slaughter without remorse, discrimination or respect for the rites of combat!’

‘We can’t afford to discriminate between strains of disease.’ Kataria’s voice and weapon were one cold, cruel amalgamation, hissing callously in unison as she loosed her arrow. ‘Shicts don’t fight fair. Fourteen.’

‘And your companions, are they strains of the same disease?’

Kataria fought hard to keep her body from stiffening, to keep her ears from flattening against her head. The Serrant could not hit a target with arrows. The shict resolved that she could not allow her to see her hit a target with words, either. She could not let the Serrant see her offence at the suggestion. Better to keep the ears upright, proud ears.

Shict ears.

A roar turned her attention to the deck and she glowered. Smoke curled into the sky from smouldering bodies. Men swarmed about the red-skinned brute at their centre, trying to hack at him, trying to take courage in their numbers even as Gariath continued to rip, to pull, to claw and to bludgeon.

Stupid reptile, she thought resentfully, taking all my kills. She glowered at the rapidly thinning crowd of foes. I could kill them all if they’d just stop moving around so much, scampering little monkeys. Her eyes drifted to the Linkmaster, keeping pace with the Riptide so easily, its helmsman shouting encouragement as he guided the ship with expert ease.

And his big, fat, ripe head. .

‘That’s it,’ she whispered.

She loosed an unpleasant guffaw, which only increased as Squiggy cast her a curious cringe.

‘This is how I’ll help you,’ she said. ‘We put a stop to these little pirates moving about and we’ll pluck them off one by one.’ She glanced to the black ship. ‘Of course, we could also just end this game by putting their ship behind us.’

‘What?’ One of Quillian’s eyebrows arched in response to an inner twinge of dread and she whirled about to follow the shict’s gaze. ‘What do you mean?’

‘They can’t do much if they can’t catch us, can they? And they can’t catch us if they can’t chase us.’ Kataria drew her arrow, aiming it across the gap of sea and the salt-slick deck of the Linkmaster, towards its helm. ‘Thusly, all we need to do is keep them from chasing us.’

Quillian’s eyes went wide as the shict’s plan dawned on her. The glistening tip of her arrow was aimed directly at the filthy man at the Linkmaster’s wheel, blissfully unaware of her aim as he hurled abuse at Argaol.

‘Like so,’ Kataria finished.

‘Wait, you idiot!’

Quillian’s hand snatched an arm already hanging at the shict’s side, having loosed the arrow long before the Serrant could even reach for it. With painful slowness, Quillian stared as the arrow hummed with an almost casual speed towards the pirates’ helmsman. No heads looked up, far too embroiled in their current battle to foresee the impending disaster.

Quillian’s breath caught in her throat as the arrow caught in the helmsman’s. He jerked slightly, then stiffened with a curious look on his face, as though unaware of what had just happened.

‘There,’ Kataria said, shrugging the Serrant’s hand off. ‘What’s so bad about that?’

The slain helmsman answered.

He slumped across the wheel, his body dragging it into a full spin. The chain connecting the two ships went slack as the Linkmaster veered suddenly, driven by the corpse’s weight. The screams of pirates tumbling off their now-unstable bridge were punctuated by splashes of water. Cries of alarm rose up from the deck as fingers pointed towards the black-timbered titan now careening towards the Riptide. The pale-skinned creatures clinging to the hull in mid-climb croaked a collective chorus of terror.

Then, all sounds died in a great wooden scream.

The two huge ships collided, bows splintering. The Linkmaster’s momentum sent the Riptide spinning as their hulls ground together. Particularly unlucky pirates and pale frogmen were reduced from hostile invaders to smears in the span of two breaths.

The fighting on the deck ground to a halt as the ships did, the sudden shifting sending all combatants sprawling to kiss the salt. Eventually, the spiralling, the screaming and the splintering stopped, leaving two floating behemoths bobbing with unfitting calmness.

Kataria took the opportunity to stagger to her feet, gripping the edge of the crow’s nest. She glanced down at the carnage: dizzy men struggling to rise and find their weapons, uttering prayers to various human Gods, flattened chunks of red and pink tumbling into the waters as the hulls eased apart. In the funerary wake of sound, a stray wind caressed her hair, sending her feathers fluttering.

A smile creased her face, breaking into a peal of laughter that was long, loud and unwholesome.

‘How many do you think that was worth, Squiggy?’ She cast a glance behind her, spying nothing. ‘Squiggy?’

When she discovered the bronze-clad fingers clutching at the nest’s edge, she had to fight to keep her laughter from overpowering her. She couldn’t say at that moment why the sight of Quillian dangling by one stubborn hand was so amusing to her. Perhaps it was her expression, the mixture of fear and outrage at having been hurled from the nest by the force of the collision. Perhaps it was simply the rush of having scored so many Kou’ru with one shot, the woman’s humiliation being merely the punctuation of a squeal-filled giddy sentence.

Or perhaps it was the opportunity dangling before her.

‘Help me up.’ Quillian’s voice had not even the slightest hint of request.

Kataria’s own hand lingered on the rail, her gaze contemplative. There was no real reason to watch the Serrant fall, she realised, but was hard pressed to think of a reason to haul her bronze-clad bulk back up.

And yet, something stayed her hand, a mere finger’s length from the Serrant’s own reaching gauntlet. Here was a human with genuine hate reinforced with swords, cross-bows and blind zeal. Here was a human who saw notched ears as a target.

She had seen such hate before, but only in the eyes of those not content to revile her people and wallow in deluded myth about the tribes. This hate, the undiluted foulness behind Quillian’s eyes, was reserved for those who had seen shicts. Seen, she thought, and killed.

Her suspicions were confirmed, at least as much as she needed them to be, in the grit of the woman’s teeth and narrowing of her eyes. She could not disguise her loathing, even as she dangled above the already blood-soaked deck. Even for the sake of her life, Kataria realised, this human couldn’t commit the fraud of repentance.

‘If you’re going to kill me,’ the Serrant hissed, ‘then cease drawing it out.’

Kataria made no reply besides a careful, contemplative blink. Here was a human who had killed her people. Here was a human who had committed the one sin all shicts were sworn to avenge. Here was a human who could be one less slayer of her tribeskin, a human the world wouldn’t miss.

They can always make more, she thought.

‘Do it,’ the Serrant hissed.

Kataria’s hand moved in response, wrapping around the Serrant’s wrist.

‘Don’t be such a whiner,’ the shict grunted, straining with the effort of hauling up the bronze-clad woman. ‘Just because,’ she paused to breathe, ‘I took my time,’ she gasped, ‘Riffid Alive, but you’re heavy.’

Suddenly she paused, as the woman’s chest rose just above the basket’s edge.

‘Wait a moment, how many did you say that last one was worth?’

‘What?’ Hate vanished in a moment of puzzlement in Quillian’s eyes.

‘When the ships collided,’ Kataria repeated, ‘how many was that worth? How many did I kill?’

‘I don’t know,’ the Serrant snarled, ‘I was a bit busy nearly falling to my death.’

‘Just take a guess.’

‘I don’t know. .’ She drew in a breath through her teeth. ‘You killed. . perhaps eight heathens.’

‘EIGHT?’

Quillian’s shriek was short and brief as the shict released her. She came to a sudden, jerking halt, her bronze fingers digging deeper into the wood to suspend herself. A staggering gasp that sounded as though the woman’s stomach was on the verge of spilling out of her mouth went unheeded by Kataria.

‘That had to be fifteen,’ Kataria protested sharply, ‘at least twelve.’

‘You’re delusional,’ Quillian growled in response. ‘Eight is being generous. You didn’t do more than shoot one man and send a few others into the sea.’

‘In a chunky jam I sent them! Give me a better number!’

‘Lying is a sin in the eyes of all Gods.’

‘Then you’d better cut it out before I send you to meet them.’

Until that moment, it hadn’t truly occurred to Kataria that she was prepared to send the woman to her death for refusing to concede a few extra Kou’ru when she hadn’t been willing to condemn her for supposedly killing her own tribesmen. It bothered her little; whether by righteous vengeance or petty numbers, still one less human.

If, Kataria told herself, she continues to act in such a human manner.

‘Do you concede?’

‘Not a chance,’ Quillian snapped back.

‘Lovely.’ The shict put on a self-satisfied smirk. ‘Bid your smelly Gods good day on behalf of Riffid for me.’

She turned about, folding her arms over her chest. She could resume shooting in a moment, when this particular distraction was over. Absently, she scratched her flank as she waited for the sound of bronze grinding against wood, gulls crying above the inevitable shriek, a pompous melon exploding in a barrel.

Either that or a plea for mercy. They’d be equally satisfying.

‘Shict,’ Quillian gasped.

So soon? Kataria resolved not to turn just yet; that would be too easy.

‘Shict!’

She can hold on for a few more moments. . or not.

‘Damn it, you long-eared vagrant! Something’s happening below!’

Kataria’s ears twitched. The Serrant’s concerns were confirmed in a cry of pain from a familiar voice. She whirled about, leaning over the dangling woman to peer at what was occurring below.

What had begun as a melee had degenerated into a matter of swaths: swaths fleeing before Gariath as he tore through the ranks of the pirates, swaths collapsing before Dreadaeleon’s fiery hands as his arcane chant went unchallenged.

‘That hardly counts as a “happening”,’ the shict sneered. ‘I’ve already killed as many as they have.’

‘Not that, you imbecile!’ Quillian pointed a bronze finger across the deck.

Kataria’s eyes widened immediately, ears pricking up in alarm at the sight. The greatest swath of all lay at the Riptide’s helm, the sailors who had been guarding it now cast to the timbers like scythed wheat. The figure of Rashodd was immense amidst the carnage, wading unhurriedly up the steps towards the sole figure, short and wiry, standing in his way.

‘Lenk,’ she whispered.

Her arrow was up and nestled in the bowstring in an instant, aimed squarely for Rashodd’s massive back. The pirate, however, seemed less than interested in standing still and suddenly twisted, drawing up beside Lenk, uncomfortably close. Even as wiry as he was, as skilled as she was, and as massive as the Cragsman was, her fingers quivered.

No, she resolved at that moment. She would not add Lenk to her score. Besides, she reasoned, a shot from such a distance into a man of Rashodd’s girth had no guarantee to kill. To waste arrows on a single Kou’ru, no matter how big, simply wasn’t acceptable.

Her arrow was back in her quiver, bow in hand, leg over the crow’s nest’s railing as she prepared to climb down the rigging. Only a sudden shriek gave her pause.

‘Hey! HEY!’

‘Oh, right.’ She glanced over the quaking bronze digits and stared down at Quillian. ‘I almost forgot.’ She smiled. ‘Now, we’re agreeing that the collision caused at least twelve in my favour, yes?’

‘Yes, sure, whatever!’ The Serrant nodded fervently. ‘Just-’

‘Mind yourself, I have to count.’ The shict made a show of wiggling her digits. ‘Fourteen from arrows alone plus, if we’re frugal, another twelve makes. .’ She smiled morbidly down at Squiggy, tapping her nose with a finger. ‘An even twenty-seven. Lucky number!’

The total dawned on Quillian the moment Kataria leapt from the nest and deftly seized the rigging. Squeals of fury followed her down, but she ignored them. There were more pressing concerns.

A flash of sparks at the helm drew her attention; Lenk was hard pressed against Rashodd’s twin axes, his sword nothing more than a weak stinger in the hands of a tiny wasp. Kataria gritted her teeth, splayed her legs against the ropes of the rigging and slid down, ignoring the burn of the hemp that bit through her gloves. She had no time for pain.

The game was not yet over.